Die Transpositionskunst von Ry Nikonova und Sergej Sigej

The article discusses the relationship between original and transposition in the work of Ry Nikonova and Sergej Sigej. Starting from Walter Benjamin's idea that there is no qualitative difference between original and translation in an age of technical reproduction, the author reflects upon the many aspects of an endless continuation of writing within the field of tension between originality and non-originality. Prominent in Sigej's work are devices of a “total” recycling and “re”-remaking of the “gotovaja forma”. In connection with the genesis of Nikonova's book Šval' (1971–1973) there is a discussion of the poet's transpositional devices that develop into textual “apotheoses without any frills”. Bearing in mind Nikonova's later “architekstury”, which with their vectors and textual traverses define places without space, an analogy is made with Jacques Derrida's concept of grammatology and Peter Eisenman's theory of architecture.